Olga Talamante
Biography
Olga Talamante was a Bay Area Chicana activist and University of California, Santa Cruz graduate who, while doing political work in Argentina with the Peronist Youth, was arrested in November 1974 in Azul and held for sixteen months as a political prisoner, during which she was tortured with electric shock. An international campaign by the Olga Talamante Defense Committee won her freedom on March 27, 1976; The Black Panther reported her return, introducing her at Bay Area rallies as a freed political prisoner. She later directed the Chicana Latina Foundation.
Talamante was sentenced in Azul, Argentina, on September 17, 1975, to three years for alleged subversive activities under the state-of-siege laws. The charges included weapons offenses and resisting arrest. In interviews after her return, she denied possessing the weapons and said police had planted them and tortured her into signing a confession. The three-year sentence was the nominal penalty; she remained confined despite earlier assurances that sentencing would be followed by deportation. Her existing March 27, 1976 release date is distinct from those unfulfilled promises.
FBI San Francisco file on Olga Castillo Talamante, 1972–1985, NARA Argentina Declassification Project, document 32994338, PDF page 20; FBI San Francisco file on Olga Castillo Talamante, 1972–1985, NARA Argentina Declassification Project, document 32994338, PDF page 63; FBI San Francisco file on Olga Castillo Talamante, 1972–1985, NARA Argentina Declassification Project, document 32994338, PDF page 64; FBI San Francisco file on Olga Castillo Talamante, 1972–1985, NARA Argentina Declassification Project, document 32994338, PDF page 15; FBI San Francisco file on Olga Castillo Talamante, 1972–1985, NARA Argentina Declassification Project, document 32994338, PDF page 17; FBI San Francisco file on Olga Castillo Talamante, 1972–1985, NARA Argentina Declassification Project, document 32994338, PDF page 18; FBI San Francisco file on Olga Castillo Talamante, 1972–1985, NARA Argentina Declassification Project, document 32994338, PDF page 70; FBI San Francisco file on Olga Castillo Talamante, 1972–1985, NARA Argentina Declassification Project, document 32994338, PDF page 71; FBI San Francisco file on Olga Castillo Talamante, 1972–1985, NARA Argentina Declassification Project, document 32994338, PDF page 119; FBI San Francisco file on Olga Castillo Talamante, 1972–1985, NARA Argentina Declassification Project, document 32994338, PDF page 128; FBI San Francisco file on Olga Castillo Talamante, 1972–1985, NARA Argentina Declassification Project, document 32994338, PDF page 131.
